The bridge judders under hard thrust. Spoofed returns crawl across the forward screens, and the pirate lock keeps slipping on the noise blanket. Nahuli has the couplings half-seated already, a dangerous fit, but the drive response is starting to stabilize.
Lahani
Give me something clean to fly on, and I can break their solution.
A fresh spike flashes across the diagnostics, not a lock this time, a weakband relay ping from the military hardware. If Nahuli threads it in now, the Amber Wing gets a stronger jump profile. If he misses, the drive will cough loud enough to invite company.
Nahuli
The coupling geometry is holding. The relay spike is the key.
Ranuko
Drive control is opening, but only if that coupling takes the load. I need the power handoff now.
The pirate vessel’s scan pings smear across the static again, closer than before. Somewhere out there, they are narrowing the search. Inside the bridge, the upgrades are either going live or becoming a beacon.
The Captain
You can keep hiding, or you can run. Either way, I still get paid if you stay in range.
✓ Quest Accepted
Break the pirate's pursuit
“We have the smaller ship. into the debris field. Lets see if they have the skills to keep up.”
SUCCESS (Great Piloting, rolled +0)
Nahuli shoves the handoff through. The drive catches with a hard, clean surge, and the Amber Wing kicks sideways into the debris field instead of straight into the pirate’s line.
Jagged wreckage rolls past the canopy in spinning sheets and splinters of ice-dark metal. Lahani hauls the controls through the gap, using the clutter as a shield and a blind.
Lahani
I have the gap. Keep that drive breathing.
Ranuko’s readout steadies under the new load, and the noise blanket starts to eat the pirate scans at the edges. Their lock keeps trying to bite, but the field keeps swallowing the reach.
The Captain
There you are. You run well for a smaller ship.
The Captain’s amused tone cuts through the comm static as the pirate vessel loses a clean approach. The Amber Wing is no longer sitting in the open, and the pursuit has to thread the wreckage or back off.
Ahead, the debris corridor tightens into a ragged maze, full of hard turns and dead masses. One wrong move now means a collision, and the pirate captain knows it.
“We can use some of the debris to cause damage”
YES (Likely, rolled 16)
Nahuli
The density of the debris is not just a shield, it is a weapon if I can trigger a kinetic chain reaction.
Nahuli spots a massive, unstable bulkhead drifting directly into the pirate's projected intercept vector. A precise pulse from the Amber Wing's newly integrated drive couplings could destabilize the bulkhead's remaining structural integrity, sending a cascade of shrapnel into the pursuer's path.
“Kiryati, on those salvage beams! You got plenty of ammo here to use.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Engineering, rolled -1)
The drive couplings answer on the first pulse. On Lahani’s display, the jagged bulkhead shudders, its spin turning ugly as a line of salvage beams lances into it from off-screen.
Lahani
That timing is clean. The debris will do the rest.
Metal fractures along old stress seams. The bulkhead sheds bright shards into the pirate’s vector, forcing the enemy lane into a widening storm of wreckage.
Ranuko
Yeah, that’s it. Keep it hot, keep it moving.
The Amber Wing surges through the opening, engines holding. The pirate pursuit line breaks as the debris curtain swallows their approach.
Lahani
They lost the lane.
Across the bridge, the captain’s amused voice crackles over comms, sounding more entertained than surprised.
Quest Complete
Break the pirate's pursuit
Skill Upgrade: Piloting Great→Superb